


the brightest spark

by littletrenchcoatangel



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: currently posting all my tumblr works to ao3, most of them lack capital letters, or the ones i like in any case, sorry about that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-27
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 16:28:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littletrenchcoatangel/pseuds/littletrenchcoatangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles always thought of his mother as a candle, capable of bringing light to even the darkest of places.</p><p>It just never occurred to him that a candle is always, eventually, blown out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the brightest spark

**Author's Note:**

> Don't mind me, just chucking my tumblr words at another website.
> 
> I have a lot of Mama Stilinski feels.

(he stopped putting candles on his birthday cakes when he was nine years old)

Stiles’ mother was small - not in spirit, but in height (in spirit she was brighter than any flame) - and often overlooked; an artist by nature, she never could quite fit in (she believed that the common person was unimaginative and plain, and often refused, on principle, to give them a second thought), but to Stiles, she stood out like a firework in an empty night sky (he cannot stand fireworks).

However small she might have been, though, she was endlessly reliable; if you couldn’t depend on Stiles’ mother, you couldn’t depend on anyone. When Scott’s father filed for divorce while Scott was at school, Melissa was so broken up about it that she couldn’t leave the house, not even to pick Scott up. So Stiles’ mother stepped in, picked Scott up, and she helped Melissa through it. Stiles thought his mother was like the first beam of light at sunrise; no matter what had happened the day before, no matter how dark the night had been, she would be there, without fail, to bring the light (he will not watch the sunrise anymore).

Stiles’ mother was not only reliable, but strong, too. When Stiles was first diagnosed with ADD at the age of 5, his mother was there, running a calming hand over his hair and telling him everything was going to be okay, he only had to have a little bit of medicine every day at breakfast, just like she did, and he’d be a superhero, just like her (he does not want to be batman, no matter what he says. he will not be a superhero again) (sometimes he wishes his mother had chosen to be robin instead). She disguised it as a game for him, telling him it’d make him super smart and he played along, even as he noticed that her medicine - the medicine that was supposed to make her a superhero - wasn’t working anymore. She powered through her own difficulties in order to help someone else through theirs, like an old lantern flickers before it brightens a room (the moment a light flickers in his house, he will change the bulb).

Even when she was in hospital, fighting for her life, she would never hesitate to try and put a smile on Stiles’ face. She was a candle lit at both ends, constant and beautiful until she snuffed herself out (he couldn’t hate what was a part of her without learning to hate her a little, too).

(the cancer was a glass above her, descending faster and faster, suffocating her, and lifting up at the last second, before one day, it just didn’t lift up)

(the glass smothers him in the form of panic attacks. sometimes he wishes it was cancer.)

Stiles always thought of his mother as a candle, capable of bringing light to even the darkest of places.

(deaton called him a spark and all he could think of was his mother. he was the last spark of her candle and he was going to disappoint her before he’d even become a flame)

His mother was like the burning guilt within his heart (it flares whenever he thinks that - how could he compare her beauty to something as horrible as guilt?), constant and always,  _always_ there, until one day, she wasn’t (the guilt is there, the guilt will always be there, but he only noticed its presence when his mother’s flame went out).

Stiles always thought of his mother as a candle.

It just never occurred to him that a candle is always, eventually, blown out.

**Author's Note:**

> Forget diamonds, comments are a girl's best friend. (And bookmarks. And also kudos.)
> 
> (Honestly I just appreciate the feedback, whether you use words or not.)


End file.
